Dracula’s on the Night Shift Manga Stars an Unusual Vampire

There are honestly a lot of vampire manga series out there. We have shojo romantic ones like Vampire Knight. The Vampire Dies in No Time is a shonen comedy. They were a fixture in the early JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure arcs! We also can’t forget Hellsing. Dracula’s on the Night Shift (Dracula Yakin) started out as a Satoshi Wagahara light novel, before getting a manga adaptation, and it offers its own sort of take on vampires and their otherworldly nature. It’s also a rather fascinating one, since our lead Yura sometimes comes across as a rather ordinary man.

Editor’s Note: There will be some minor spoilers for the Dracula’s on the Night Shift manga below.

Yura is a vampire. Shocking in a series called Dracula’s on the Night Shift, I know. He’s a rather ordinary person, other than that. He spent 70 years trying to find the person responsible, hoping to one day become human again, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. He still has some worldly connections, like the brother he saved who didn’t get turned. But for now, he’s working the night shift at a convenience store in Ikebukuro. 

Even though Yura is a vampire, which we’d typically associate with a villain, he’s set up as a genuinely good person as the Dracula’s on the Night Shift manga begins. When he finds out his boss is divorced, he stays out even a bit later than usual to comfort him. Even though sunrise is coming, he aids Iris — a woman he doesn’t even know — as she’s accosted by drunk men who turn out to also be vampires.

This gets him disintegrated by the sun and turned into ash. Except Iris is a Sister of the Dark Cross Knights. She’s accustomed to the otherworldly, gets his ashes and things together, and brings him to his home. Her target was the Holy Cross Church sect that he ended up helping her fight the previous night. Since the group knows that “not all phantoms are evil,” she didn’t take action against Yura and helped him. 

All of this leads to the point of the series. Yura wants to live a normal life. Or as normal as he can get. He even started to abandon the thoughts of trying to become human again. But now that he’s met Iris, he’s forming more connections with the world and gaining hope again. The volume ends up following as the two face other phantoms, assist people in the world, and even end up encountering Aika, the woman who made Yura what he is. It’s this great mix of moments that can be funny or heartfelt, depicting daily life of a man who also happens to be a vampire, as well as more thrilling moments as he and Iris deal with the more malicious individuals out there. It’s an interesting balance.

The thing is, I feel a little let down that this seems to be all we’ll possibly get when it comes to Dracula’s on the Night Shift, as there’s just this one manga. It’s a lengthy one, to be sure! It’s 448 pages long. It does stop at a good point, so there’s not really a major cliffhanger. But it does still leave Yura’s goal unfinished. There’s the promise of future adventures. I guess I just wish we’d get some guarantee of finding out what happened next for Yura and Iris. 

The Dracula’s on the Night Shift manga is available now digitally and physically via Yen Press. The light novel is available in Japan.